Posted by: Pali
« on: October 24, 2014, 07:28:37 PM »Another thing to keep in mind, moreso for space than ground, is local firepower superiority. What I mean by this is that when you engage the enemy, you want to engage as many of your guns as possible and as few of the enemy's as possible. Ships in EaW exist on different planes along the Z-axis - as far as I can tell, there is one for frigates, one for cap ships, and one for super caps. Each ship has what I refer to as its mass shadow, an area around it where other ships on that plane can't be - to get an idea of a ship's shadow, pull up the reinforcement window and see how close you can get one frigate to another; for the most part, ships on each plane won't get any closer than this to other ships on their plane (also, cap and super cap shadows will often block each other, though not always - a recent battle wouldn't let me drop an MC80b right on top of an SSD's center, but would allow over the engines). Frigate shadows, however, never interfere with those of caps or super caps, so you can have frigates sitting right on top of your biggest ships.
This all comes together to make a mixed fleet a very important thing. If all you have is caps, they will be spread out, limiting how much firepower you can bring to bear at any specific point. But if you mix in frigates, you can have them on top of your capital ships, benefitting from the cap's protection while adding their firepower to that point of conflict. Since shields regen, focused fire on one target at a time is far more effective than spreading your fire among the enemy. 3 MC80bs vs 3 ISDs should be a loss for the NR, but if the NR focuses all fire on one ISD at a time while the return fire is spread among the Mon Cals, they will win. 2 Mon Cals plus two Dreadnaughts is an equivalent force in population and credit costs, but with smart maneuvering should do even better.
Edit: Something else to pay attention to is each ship's weapon complement, detailed in the manual. Ships with a lot of lasers are good anti-fighter ships, ships with a lot of turbo lasers are good at killing frigates and doing hull damage, and ships with a lot of ions are good at stripping a capital ship's shields (less so frigates, as ions get bonuses against cap shields). This should help you figure out effective ship combinations - the above Mon Cal and dread combo works well since Mon Cals are durable with a solid ion cannon array, while dreads have a ton of turbo lasers to boost hull damage. Add in a pair of corvettes for anti-fighter weaponry, and you've got a nice little 8 pop fleet that has all its bases covered and can move as a tight little unit.
This all comes together to make a mixed fleet a very important thing. If all you have is caps, they will be spread out, limiting how much firepower you can bring to bear at any specific point. But if you mix in frigates, you can have them on top of your capital ships, benefitting from the cap's protection while adding their firepower to that point of conflict. Since shields regen, focused fire on one target at a time is far more effective than spreading your fire among the enemy. 3 MC80bs vs 3 ISDs should be a loss for the NR, but if the NR focuses all fire on one ISD at a time while the return fire is spread among the Mon Cals, they will win. 2 Mon Cals plus two Dreadnaughts is an equivalent force in population and credit costs, but with smart maneuvering should do even better.
Edit: Something else to pay attention to is each ship's weapon complement, detailed in the manual. Ships with a lot of lasers are good anti-fighter ships, ships with a lot of turbo lasers are good at killing frigates and doing hull damage, and ships with a lot of ions are good at stripping a capital ship's shields (less so frigates, as ions get bonuses against cap shields). This should help you figure out effective ship combinations - the above Mon Cal and dread combo works well since Mon Cals are durable with a solid ion cannon array, while dreads have a ton of turbo lasers to boost hull damage. Add in a pair of corvettes for anti-fighter weaponry, and you've got a nice little 8 pop fleet that has all its bases covered and can move as a tight little unit.